A variety of board-like devices have been used in many different sports for centuries. Perhaps the oldest of these are sleds and skis that had been developed out of necessity for use in snow country and later adapted for sport. Water boards, though still quite old, are relatively more recent. Reports of surfboarding go back at least to 1779 when The Journal of Captain King described Captain Cook's recollection of surfboarders in Hawaii. Australian travelers returning from Hawaii eventually picked up the idea but not until the 1890's. Water skis were a fairly late arrival in the realm of water sports since their use required a water-borne power source to tow the skier. The first recorded water skiing was not until 1922 in Minnesota, but by 1939 the American Water Ski Association had organized the first National Water Ski Championship competition at Jones Beach on Long Island, N.Y. By the 1960's both water skiing and surfboarding had grown in popularity to the extent that it had become commercially attractive to apply technology to advance these sports.
In addition to surfboarding and water skiing, where the motive force is supplied respectively by waves in the surf or a motorboat, other forms of aquatic board sports have developed. Some of these are knee boarding and wake boarding which also require a motorboat. When paddle boarding the user self-generates the driving force through paddles. Another related sport is kite boarding which harnesses wind energy to allow a surfboarder to ride without waiting for waves. The prior art describes many devices related to these various forms of water sport. Some examples may be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,615,568; 3,145,400; 3,237,222; 4,293,968; 4,986,784; 5,617,809; 5,970,900; and 6,042,439.
In 1927 Carroll disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,615,568 an amusement device that could be used with a surfboard in the ocean. With Carroll's device an expansible member such as a spring was connected to a stationary object. The user would stretch the spring while wading or swimming into the surf away from the stationary object. At an appropriate time the user would initiate a release of the expansible member drawing the rider of a surfboard toward the stationary object on the shore. It is noted that the tension created in the expansible member was generated by the efforts of the rider in towing the device some distance away from the stationary object.
In the late 1970's as people were exploring board sports, including land-based skateboards, it became common to tie a rope to a board and attach it to just about anything that moved in order to catch a ride. It was about this time that the pioneers of riverboarding started with the basics, tying a rope to a board, and securing the other end of the rope to shore before jumping into a river with the board. With some experience, it was discovered that in addition to skimming on top of the water, the board could also be wedged into the current allowing board and rider to drift downstream and then shoot back upstream. Water flow in the river supplied the force to stretch the rope, and oftentimes bend the overhead tree branch that had been used as an anchor. The upstream propulsion was created by the rope and branch returning to their relaxed states. As riverboarders became more demanding, other items, such as garage door springs and garden hoses, replaced the rope or were tied to it to provide greater stretch. Eventually riders settled on bungee cords or inner tubes.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,986,784 issued to French in 1991 seems to be the first patent related to harnessing the motive force of flowing water as in a river, rather than requiring direct user effort through paddles or swimming against a spring as in Carroll's '568 patent, or the use of a motorboat. French's riverboard was secured to an anchor through a system that included a safety rod, and various tether members. One of the tether members was resilient which allowed the user to maneuver the board so as to stretch the resilient member away from an anchor and then draw the board and its rider upstream toward the anchor against the river current. French focused on some of the safety issues related to the sport of riverboarding that had developed in the wild.
Pederson's U.S. Pat. No. 6,431,932 of 2002 described a water board for use on a river and addressed some specifics of board design and means of user control. Pederson's board had a rounded tail to facilitate “carving” a turn, but his board was still flat. French's board was flat, but he allowed for optional components for “furnishing additional structural integrity” and for “urging the riverboard to skim the water surface.” His stated desire, however, was that even after any additions “preferably the upper surface and the lower surface substantially mirror one another so that a user may ride on either side.” The prior art of riverboarding has shown only minor deviations from flat boards. To find water boards where there has been any substantial deviation from flat, one must look to boards used for riding the surf.
Other sports, not related to aquatics, have taken the use of resilient cords to what some people consider extremes. In bungee jumping a user is tethered by a resilient cord to a high anchor, often a bridge or a crane, and jumps to experience the exhilaration of free-fall followed by a rapid reversal in G-forces as the cord is stretched near its limit. Shock cords used for bungee jumping In the United States typically have an elongation to 208% of their static length. These cords are often made of multiple parallel inner cords jacketed in a woven fabric that acts to keep the core elements of the cord from whipping and to safely limit elongation to within the bounds of the core elements. New Zealanders call the same sport bungy jumping (with a different spelling) and prefer all-rubber cords that stretch to 300–400% of their static length. An unrelated use of shock cords is for the launching of sailplanes. For this purpose surgical tubing is often used but the cord of preference is mandrel-dipped latex tubing capable of 850% elongation.